in silico Plants (isP) launches – a computational plant science journal

Mathematical modelling and computational analysis of plants and plant-related processes is growing rapidly. Web of Science lists 4881 publications in the last ten years on mathematical models, which cover just Arabidopsis and four crops, and half of these articles emerged within the last two years. This represents a point of transition as plant biology becomes increasingly quantitative, and theoretical predictions increasingly precede and guide experimental discovery and proof-of-concept.

Our community now needs a point of focus to bring it to the attention of policy makers, funding agencies, colleagues and educators. isP, with your help will do this. As a not-for-profit journal it will support our continued integration and annual meetings to advance our cause in an area that promises to revolutionize plant sciences.

isP will lead to rapid advances in plant modelling. Readers will have access to research across disciplinary boundaries – mathematical and conceptual modelling, systems analysis, computer simulations, and visualization. Access to diverse publications in one place will enable a cross-fertilization of ideas and access to new tools, approaches, and solutions to challenges.

isP’s founding editors exemplify its cross-disciplinary outlook on computational plant science.

• Steve Long (Univ. Illinois & Lancaster Univ.,Chief Editor) – mechanistic models at different scales relating environmental effect on photosynthesis and water use to sustainable plant productivity
• Graeme Hammer (Univ. Queensland) – models of crop growth, development and yield that enable simulation of consequences of genetic and management manipulation of crops in specific target environments, and under climate change.
• Amy Marshall-Colon (Univ. Illinois) – regulatory mechanisms from gene networks to whole plants controlling nitrogen uptake and assimilation in plants using a systems biology approach
• Przemyslaw Prusinkiewicz (Univ. Calgary) – modeling, simulation and visualization of the development of organs, plants and communities.
• Xin-Guang Zhu (Chinese Academy of Sciences, Shanghai) – multi-scale dynamic systems models and tools to support identification of new breeding or engineering targets to gain higher sustainable crop productivity.

isP welcomes papers using mathematical and conceptual modelling, systems analysis, computer simulations, and visualization in approaching topics ranging from molecular level processes, physiology, biomechanics, organ and whole plant development and growth, to crop productivity and ecosystem dynamics. Learn more at http://academic.oup.com/insilicoplants

isP is an OpenAccess journal launched via Oxford University Press (OUP) and Annals of Botany (AoB).